


Speaking in Tongues

by d0t



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Language Kink, M/M, Schmoop, Slow Build, Witches, polish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:15:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0t/pseuds/d0t
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on this <a href="http://twilightmundi.tumblr.com/post/74344662167/werewolfzero-i-need-fic-where-derek-asks-why">prompt from werewolfzero</a>, in which Stiles finds out Derek speaks Polish, a language he hasn't heard since his mother died. Schmoop will ensue. I can't even.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Władysław

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FandomHopper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomHopper/gifts).



> So basically, this is all TwilightMundi's fault, for posting [this prompt from werewolfzero](http://twilightmundi.tumblr.com/post/74344662167/werewolfzero-i-need-fic-where-derek-asks-why). I can't resist a Polish prompt. I'm, like, physically unable. I have no idea how often I'll update, or even where this is going to go, but, well, I hate you SFM, TM, for dragging me kicking and screaming back into writing fic.

It says a lot about the state of Stiles' life that he doesn't so much as flinch when his window opens and Derek Hale creeps into his bedroom.

"No. Nie. Nyet. Nein. Nope. Not happening. I don't care if you're bleeding out your eyeballs. There is Calculus. To be done. Regiomontanus' angle maximization problem to be solved. Although why anyone would bust out the Calculus to figure out how to hang a picture is beyond my considerable imagination. Still. Calculus. Being done. No werewolf stuff. Or other stuff. No stuff at all."

Stiles looks at his most recent scratches and, once again, applies what's left of his eraser. It's ridiculous. Calculus for picture-hanging. 

Derek says nothing more than "It can wait," and wanders around Stiles' room, picking things up and setting them back as he moves from desk to nightstand to dresser. There's not enough Adderall in the world that will keep him focused when a silent werewolf is touching his things, but he gives it his best effort, and hopes his heartbeat isn't betraying him. He's not going to ask what Derek wants. Nope. Not happening. He's going to finish his Calc homework and then maybe play a little CoD and hopefully by then Derek will be gone and he can commence with his nightly routine of masturbation and sleep. 

This is contingent on there being no werewolf stuff. And Calc being finished. But Derek shows no signs of leaving any time soon.

Stiles returns to the numbers he just transposed and is almost there -- well, as close as he's going to get -- when it comes to focusing his attention back on the homework when Derek clears his throat.

"I was just wondering…" he trails off, which is possibly more annoying than him talking in the first place.

"Wondering what? Spit it out. Again, homework. Being done."

"Never mind. It's not important."

Stiles huffs and spins his chair to face Derek, who's relocated himself to the bed. Stiles' bed. He's not going to think about Derek being on his bed or why that might be. Instead, he tips as far back in his chair as is probably physically possible.

"Come on. You've interrupted my homework, gotten werewolf cooties on every piece of tchotchke in here, so there's obviously a question you want to ask. What is it?"

"I was just wondering why you never use your real name."

Stiles has to close his eyes for a minute. Just to regroup. Derek can't have interrupted this completely useless homework to ask about his name. His very painful name.

"Are we really having this conversation?" he asks.

"You insisted," Derek says.

Stiles waves his hand over at the Kindergarten "graduation" diploma sitting in a frame on his dresser that undoubtedly prompted Derek's interest.

"Dude, how is this even a question. Look at it! There are letters in there that don't even exist in the English language. Now imagine a bunch of five-year-olds, many of whom are still lisping, trying to wrap their heads around that mouthful. It was horrible. It was ugly. Shit, Scott has never managed to pronounce it right, and I'm pretty sure we were friends before we wore big-boy underwear. My father, who is second-generation Polish, I might add, struggles with it. And you want me to inflict that on others?"

Derek shrugs. "It's a nice name. Means, uh, rule with glory, right? That's cooler than Stiles. Władysław."

Stiles tells himself it's only the shock of Derek's mouth as it handles the unique consonant combinations in his name that results in the wild windmilling of his arms and the subsequent crash of his chair -- and him -- to the floor. Where he's now staring at Derek. Upside-down. While he lies there on his back, his mouth opening and closing like a fish struggling for oxygen after flopping up onto the beach.

"Dude, how did you…? You can…?"

"Może tak. Mowię po polsku."

It's a struggle, but Stiles manages to continue breathing while he pulls himself into a sitting position. It's not pretty, but he's at least alive. And sitting.

"Of course you do. Of course you speak Polish." He shakes his head, like it's going to wake him up from this very strange dream he's having. 

"I, um, yeah." Derek is blushing, actually blushing. And rubbing the back of his neck. Like he's embarrassed.

It's the blushing and the neck-rubbing that tells Stiles this is for real, that Derek actually speaks Polish, of all things. 

"Look, I don't meant to be a cultural bigot, but Hale isn't exactly the kind of name you run into in downtown Warsaw. Or, you know, even expect to know what Dyngus Day is. So want to explain exactly why you can pronounce my mouthful of a name? And why you just so happen to speak Polish?"

Derek stares at a point on the wall behind Stiles' head that must be absolutely fascinating, based on his attention to it. 

"When Laura and I were in New York, I didn't really know what to do with myself. I was taking classes at Hunter College -- in Polish, in Russian, in Slavic literature, in Polish history. I liked it. And lately, I've just thought maybe I shouldn't let all that go to waste. So I'm, uh, taking some more classes? Maybe finishing a degree?"

"In Polish?"

"Specifically, in Eastern European languages. With a minor in literature."

"And you speak Polish."

Derek's mouth struggles with the beginnings of a grin. Just a hint of one, actually, and only on one side.

"And read Polish."  
Stiles would be a bald-faced liar if he didn't admit that his eyes may have something in them. Dust or something.

"Yeah, my mom." He clears his throat. "My mom spoke Polish to me. My father never knew more than a sort of bastardized conversational Polish, but my mom… I haven't really heard Polish since she died."

"I was sort of hoping you wouldn't mind helping me a little? I mean, in New York there were tons of people, but in Beacon Hills, the Polish-speaking population--"

Stiles cuts him off. "Is me. I am the Polish-speaking population of Beacon Hills."

"Exactly. And I'm getting rusty. And my thesis focuses on the poetry of Wisława Szymborska. I need to be able to discuss it in Polish…"

"Yeah," Stiles says. "Yeah, that would be okay. I could do that."

And Derek must know that at this moment, Stiles feels about as fragile as frozen crystal, so he lets himself back out the window, with a stilted wave.

"Polish," Stiles whispers, and drops his head down on his Calculus.


	2. Rodzina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more Polish-speaking Derek. A little Polish-cooking Stiles. A very confused Scott.

It's been a week since Derek's bizarro-world entrance into his room, and Stiles has managed to convince himself it was some sort of Calculus-stress-induced hallucination. The idea of Derek speaking Polish and asking for help and advice is so ridiculous he hasn't even told Scott. Not that Scott would be paying attention these days, but if he were, Stiles wouldn't have mentioned it. 

So when he and Scott walk outside (into the bright sunlight after the darkness of a school day, Stiles thinks) to see Derek leaning against the total mom car he's been driving lately looking directly at Stiles, it's enough to make him stop. Isaac, the freakish creeper, has apparently been pretending to be Stiles' shadow, because either his werewolf reflexes have failed or he's so excited to kowtow to his prodigal former alpha that he crashes into Stiles. If it wasn't for Scott, he'd have a nice road rash right now. 

Instead, he has one very odd-looking werewolf standing in front of him with an expectant look on his face, another next to him all but growling, and a third practically climbing onto his back to get to Derek's side. Right now, Stiles would absolutely kill someone for a dog whistle to get rid of them all. 

Derek huffs impatiently before directing his glare first at Scott, then at Isaac. 

"I need to talk to Stiles for a minute. Do you two mind?"

Isaac slinks off like someone kicked his puppy, but Scott's a bit more defiant. "About what?"

Derek dignifies that with eyebrow talk. Specifically, the "Are You Kidding Me?" arch followed by a "You May Be the Alpha But I Will Still Rip Out Your Larynx" bitchbrow.

Scott's not about to back down, however. 

"There's nothing you need to talk to him about. And besides, Stiles promised to help me with my chem homework."

This is news to Stiles, but it's Derek's mutter that surprises him even more.

"Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy."

So. That wasn't a dream, then. 

"What did you just say?" Scott asks. And not in a nice way.

"He said you needing me to tutor you in the fine art of reading the periodic table is not his problem," Stiles says. 

Scott blinks at him.

"That's not at all what he said. And I have werewolf hearing. You don't."

"That's exactly what I said. Go Google something," Derek says. "Do your own homework for once."

Scott stutters at him, but Derek is already yanking Stiles toward the mom car.

"That was not nice." Stiles feels like he has to stick up for Scott. Because reasons. That he can't think of right now.

"Yeah, well, he's been depending on you to drag him through high school in four years plus a couple of summers forever. And I needed to practice."

"Uh, you could have called? Texted? Emailed? Hit my ask box on tumblr? You know, asked me to set up a time to meet?"

"What's a tumblr?"

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Too much to try to explain. But you can handle texting, right? I mean, shit. You could text from a RAZR. Or a Jitterbug. Do you have a Jitterbug?"

Derek's eyebrows do that thing where it looks almost like he's about to shift and his eyebrows will vanish right into his hairline.

"Did you just ask me if I have a-- You know what? Never mind. This _is_ me asking you if we could set up a time. I'm not going to assume you can drop everything to help me. But I wasn't about to ask you in front of Scott. Or Isaac."

"They don't know you speak Polish?"

"They don't even know I'm going back to school. I don't see how it's anyone else's business."

Ah, there's the awkward Derek Hale. Uncomfortable with anyone knowing anything about his life. Or personal business. Or anything that might make him a little more relatable.

"Whenever. Whenever is good. I mean, I actually was going to head back to my house with Scott, but if you don't mind talking while I'm making dinner for my dad, come over now."

"I don't want to bother you."

Stiles does his should-be-patented "Are you kidding me" head shake and hand flail. 

"Look, you already changed all my plans, assured me of at least ten rapidly escalating panicked texts from Scott as he tries to study on his own. That ship has sailed so far into the sunset it may discover a new continent. So get in your ridiculous mini-van--"

"It's not a mini-van. It's an SUV."

"Whatever. It's designed for hauling kids and groceries. As you have no kids and I'm pretty sure most of what you eat has appeared motherless in a 1940s Disney film, it makes zero sense for you to have it. And it definitely doesn't go with a leather jacket."

Derek gapes. "Behind on your Adderall today?"

"Maybe a little. It doesn't matter. Get in the damn car."

"And how are you getting home? Last I knew, your Jeep was trashed."

Stiles looks around, realizing he'd just let his ride go.

"Scott was supposed to…"

The eyebrows actually roll along with Derek's eyes. It's sort of fascinating when you think about it. Stiles sighs and gets in the pathetic car, which has just enough resemblance to a Jeep that he mourns it yet again.

But when they get to the house, he bolts out of Derek's car and into the house as quickly as he can unlock the door, pulling things out of the refrigerator before he even drops his backpack.

Derek has raced in after him, and nearly ruins everything when he grabs Stiles to pull him back out of the house.

"Dude, what even are you trying to do? I need to get this done now or dinner is going to be ruined."

"I smell blood! And it's strange-smelling. Like something's not right."

Stiles shakes him off and goes back over the crockpot sitting on the counter. Next to it is a small plastic container. 

"Yep, thanks, McGruff. You sure did smell blood." He shakes the container before dumping it into the crockpot while stirring. "Duck blood. And vinegar. For czernina. I make it every year for my father's birthday dinner. Slightly disgusting, and yet he loves the stuff."

"Duck blood?"

"Yes. Duck blood soup. Polish delicacy involving duck blood, vinegar, and prunes. I've never been able to understand it myself, but apparently my mother's mother used to make it and my father fell in love. So it's-- yeah. Duck blood."

"I think there's a lot I need to learn about the culture."

"Just don't ask me to make you the zimne nóżki. It's not happening. Not in this lifetime. The duck blood is as far as I'm willing to go to preserve my people's culture."

"Cold feet?"

"Pigs' feet. That unmentionable things are done with. And fed to unsuspecting grandchildren. In a gelatinous mass."

"You ate it?"

"There was chocolate cake for dessert. What would you have me do?"

It takes Derek a minute. 

"You don't talk about the rest of your family much. Just your dad, usually."

"What's to talk about? I had family. My mother died. And since no one knew what to do with a man consumed with his grief and a spazzy kid who just wanted his mother back, they sort of just let us go."

"Rodzina."

"Yeah, that's not a word we use much around here. Now, if you'll let me strain this, we can get talking."

Derek watches Stiles move as if his joints ache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nie moj cyrk, nie móje małpy - literally, "Not my circus, not my monkey." Idiomatic phrase used to mean "not my problem."
> 
> Czernina: duck blood soup. You either love it or you hate it. There's no in-between.
> 
> Zimne nóżki: I think it was jellied pigs' feet. I have no idea. Other than it can still cause me nightmares. The literal translation is what Derek says: cold feet.
> 
> Rodzina: family
> 
> So if you speak Polish, feel free to correct me. I spent a half-hour trying to convert my bastardized second-gen Polish pronunciation of zimne nóżki into actual Polish spelling. (It wasn't pretty.)
> 
> Also, I'm going to stick to short chapters, I think. It means you're more likely to get actual updates. All hail @FandomHopper for beta werkz.


	3. Puszcza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles may end up in the forest. With someone a little familiar.

A month goes by, and two very-awkward-but-getting-slightly-better meetings with Derek for the express purpose of speaking Polish occur. Which Stiles still has trouble believing are real. But after the whole Czernina Afternoon, as Stiles has taken to calling it, they've set up a regular schedule, if by regular you mean Derek has texted Stiles twice and then they meet up, and if by schedule you mean they work it around the rest of the werewolves' and various supernatural creatures' other activities.

So, clandestine Polish study sessions. Are a thing. That is done with no one else knowing about it, and if Stiles feels a bit like Derek's dirty little Polish-speaking secret, then he's not about to share it with anyone. Least of all Derek.

Tonight is supposed to be the third such meetup, at a Starbucks of all places, because who would ever expect Stiles and Derek to meet up in such a den of corporate normality. Stiles is laughing to himself as he walks down the block, trying to come up the ideal meetup places for Derek Hale, if he could meet anywhere. 

He finally settles on a coffee shop situated in a cave on the top of a mountain staffed by the Daft Punk robots. They'd brew drip coffee made with beans ground by angsty werewolves' tensed jaws. It will be the most exclusive coffee shop in the world and they'll serve raw rabbit kabobs on tree branches with a garnish of teenage boy roasted under a steady heat of glaring Alpha-red eyes and--

It's somewhere in the middle of his decision between mud and dead leaf flooring to complete the coffee shop's decor that he crashes into something soft that goes flying just as he does. He and the soft thing crash in a spectacular explosion of books and papers and powders and--

Powders. It takes him a minute longer than it probably should, because why are there two of that light pole there? He smells something he thinks he should recognize, should know from things he's ordered. From. Somewhere? He has this thing he smells, but he doesn't know what it is or why he would know it.

The next thing he does know, he's in a forest. He was sure he was on a sidewalk and there there'd been a light pole, but now he's definitely in a forest. Which seems like it should be familiar, but again, he doesn't know why that is. There's an old woman standing in front of him, and he thinks he saw her before, too. Maybe on the street, but he's not sure. Matka would say stara baba, doubling the words to emphasize that she's super-old and looks like something out of a fairy tale -- 

What he is sure of is that he knows who she is. 

"Baba Jaga," he says.

"Władysław Stilinski," she replies. "I have waited a long time for you. A very long time.

His head is still muddled, and he tries to remember what his mother told him about Baba Jaga. Not to ask her questions; it ages her. She can become younger by drinking the tea of a blue flower -- a rose, maybe? And she is-- She can--  
"I can give you all the answers you seek, Władysław. Everything you want to know. I ask only one thing in return."

"My death," he gasps. "My death is how I get answers."

He's running before he knows what he's doing, his head thumping the same steady beat as his feet are when they hit the forest floor. He keeps running until he runs into a solid wall, and then...

He doesn't understand. He's sitting on the ground and it's cold and an old woman hands him books and then there is a really really tall man who looks really angry and he's yelling something about 'stiles but the only time he's ever seen those is when Matka took him into the city and they rode the BART trains and he laughed that they named the trains after Sesame Street characters.

The tall man is still yelling and the woman is gone and then suddenly he can understand some of what the man is saying.

"Jesus Christ, you can't even speak English? Can you understand me now? What the hell happened just now?"

"She's… she was… she wants…" 

He stumbles over words, not sure who the man is or why sometimes he can understand him and sometimes he can't. 

The man pulls him to his feet and then down the street, shoving him into a sort of van. He doesn't think to fight him; the man is close to his height, but bigger and more muscular, and he mutters under his breath in a language he doesn't understand, repeating the "stiles" word frequently.

He curls up in his seat as best he can and listens to the muttering while trying to figure out where he is. He knows when they park that they're at a hospital, but not why the man drags him out of the car and shoves him toward a door under large, red letters.

It's not until he sees her that he knows where he is. Mrs. McCall. He calls her Mama sometimes when he forgets and she knows him and he feels safe, but she's talking to the tall man and seems angry, but he can't understand a thing she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to FandomHopper for beta stuff and holding my hand through the episodes. Hey! Are you following me on Twitter? @d0tpark3r


	4. Po Polsku

The hospital is loud and very confusing. Mrs. McCall looks worried and keeps talking, but he can’t seem to understand her. Other people come in and out, but none of them make any sense, and the longer he’s there, the more upset he’s getting.  
  
Finally, Mrs. McCall comes in with his dad, and he’s so relieved he might almost start crying if crying was something he did, ever. Which he doesn’t. His dad looks tired and upset and he starts talking, but he’s every bit as incomprehensible as everyone else is, and Stiles loses hope. Something has to be really wrong that he can’t understand anyone at all, including his father, and he has no idea why that is.  
  
He lies down on the super-uncomfortable bed, and buries his face in the pillow. There’s no use continuing to try to understand anyone if he can’t even understand his dad, and he waves them all away with his face still hidden.  
  
It’s only when his father mutters, “Fortepian można zasłonić lecz słonia nie można zafortepianić” that he jumps up off the bed.  
  
“Kumam czaczę!” he yells.  
  
His father looks at him like he’s insane, and says something to Mrs. McCall that he doesn’t understand again. Then he sighs.  
  
Stiles goes back to burying his face in the pillow. It’s stupid that his father doesn’t get it. He understood him! For one stupid sentence, he said something Stiles could understand and then gave up.  
  
And it wasn’t even a decent sentence. Just a stupid one, about how just because one thing is true doesn’t mean another one is true…  
  
And then the tall man is in the room, his eyes huge. He’s talking to Stiles’ dad and pointing at Stiles and sort of ranting a little — or at least his tone sounds a lot like a rant — and his dad’s eyes are equally as huge, but his eyebrows have that “I have a crazy one on my hands” look that Stiles has seen a few too many times himself.  
  
But then the tall man comes over and Stiles thinks he really should remember his name, because he has to know it. He was with him when everything went to hell, right? There was an old woman, and…  
  
The more he tries to remember, the more his head hurts. But then the tall man starts speaking and Stiles can understand him. He remember that his name is Stiles, and the tall man is Derek and holy fucking hell he’s in a hospital and he can’t understand anyone but Derek.  
  
Fuck Beacon Hills. Seriously. Fuck this whole town and its supernatural bullshit.  
  
His brain gets back on the track and catches a few things of what Derek’s saying. Polish. He’s speaking fucking Polish and it seems like all Stiles can understand now is Polish and aside from his father’s witty swearing and ability to say the names of all the Polish foods he’d like Stiles to cook for him, the only person in this entire town who can understand Stiles and whom Stiles can understand is Derek. Goddamned. Hale.

And Derek promises to stay with him to translate while they figure out whatever mess Stiles has gotten himself into this time.  
  
Stiles kind of wishes he was back to figuring out how to hang a picture with Calculus. He flops back down onto the hospital bed and covers his head with the super-crackly pillow.  
  
Enough already. Enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in a giant writing rut. Which is why it took 800 years to update this and I have no guarantees I'll be any better about updates, but at least writing fic for me is still fun. Thanks for sticking with it!
> 
> This has not been seen by a beta because I'd probably never update it. Same reason it's short. Just need that little push.


End file.
